Lily's Boyfriend
by therevolutionsayshi
Summary: When Lily brought James home over break to meet her family, James wasn't exactly prepared for them all to be terrifying. [Jily]


Written for - HSoWW(CA) - Assignment 12 - Charms

Prompts - Write about someone attempting to blend into the background, James/Lily

Notes - aaaaa I'm not too proud of this one but I tried so enjoy i guess

Word count - 928

* * *

James Potter was very likely to die right now, and for several reasons.

One, he had just met his girlfriend's parents, which had gone as well as one might expect.

* * *

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Evans," James greeted when she opened the door. "And Mr. Evans! I'm James Potter, Lily's-"

"Boyfriend, we know," said Mr. Evans. He raised an angry eyebrow.

"We've heard a lot about you," said Mrs. Evans. She looked him up and down a if she were calculating something about him.

He shrunk back. Lily noticed this, taking a small step forwards and in front of him.

"Mom, dad, why don't I introduce him to the rest of the family," she said, smiling appeasingly. "It's so nice to see you, by the way." They nodded and smiled small smiles, then went back to looking at James like they were trying to figure out a potion gone wrong.

* * *

Two, he had just met his girlfriend's sister.

* * *

"Hullo, Petunia," said Lily, greeting her sister as they walked to the kitchen, and James knew to stick to simply looking at the ground around the heels of Lily's feet as she talked.

"Who is that?" asked Petunia with a snarl, and James glanced up to look at the woman's sneer as she used her horse's neck to look around Lily at him.

"That's my boyfriend," said Lily. "James Potter."

Petunia squinted her eyes at him. "At least it's not that Snape kid," she muttered, and James was sure that was the only thing the two would ever agree on.

* * *

Three, he had just met his girlfriend's sister's husband.

* * *

"Oh!" said Petunia, taking a heavy man by the arm as he was walking past and dragging him into James's view. "This is my husband, Vernon."

She held out her hand for James to see.

"So what do you do?" asked Vernon, his words all combining in a kind of slurred version of a sentence, even though he was painfully sober. James suspected that he had never smiled in his entire life, but he kept this thought to himself.

"I'm training to be an auror," mumbled out James to Lily's shoes.

"He's training to be a cop," she said, taking pity on him, "he's been working so hard. I'm very proud of him."

Vernon raised an eyebrow. "And how much does that make, exactly?"

James glanced up at Lily for an answer. "Why should that matter, Vernon?" she asked. "He's doing his duty for his country. It shouldn't matter how much money he makes."

Vernon chortled an unfriendly and unsmiling laugh. "If you want to survive outside of school it does," he said. He glared at James, "but I'm sure you'll do just fine as a policeman."

He left, leaving James with a sinking feeling in his stomach.

* * *

Four, he had just met the rest of her family.

* * *

"Come on," Lily said, glaring at her sister and dragging James away and into the living room with most of the rest of her family. He couldn't help but to feel a sort of overwhelming anxiety come over him as he looked at the group stood there.

"Ah, who must this be?" a man who sported Lily's same red hair asked, smiling jovially. Another man, who looked like he very much did not belong here, followed him, flinging an arm around the first man's neck.

"Yes, dear. Did you really bring home a boy to Christmas from your fancy private school?" the second man asked, his voice taking on a very posh tone while referencing Hogwarts.

Lily smiled widely. "Yes I have," she said, in the same sort of tone.

James ducked his head. He really didn't want to be thought of as the posh boy Lily had brought home for show and tell.

"Excuse me, Lils," he said quietly, "I'm just gonna… go."

He ducked away and out of the room, ignoring the curious glances from Lily and the rest of her family.

* * *

Five, he had just, once again, realized that his girlfriend was the best person in the world.

* * *

He just needed to keep his head down. He needed to fade into the background, not be noticed.

He wished he had left his wand at home. He desperately wished he hadn't thought ahead in case there really had been a death eater attack. Those, he could manage, but this? Not so much.

"Hey, James, are you ok?" a voice, Lily's voice, asked from behind him.

He didn't turn around to say, "Yeah Lils, I'm fine. You should go back to talking to the rest of your family. It's be better if I'm not there for that, I think."

"Oh come on," said Lily. She took a few steps forwards to look at James. "Never in my life have you ever wanted to shy away from the lymelight. What's gotten into you?"

James shrugged uselessly. "I dunno. I guess it's just that… I don't know, they're all judging me? And I can just tell that none of them like me and I need them to like me, Lils."

James knew that she was suppressing the urge to roll her eyes. "Oh, come on. None of them dislike you. Jeremy and Michael loved you!"

"They barely heard me speak," he said.

"But I've told them loads about you already," she said, "and I'm sure that they'll love you even more after talking to you."

"You think so?" he asked.

"I know so," she said, smiling softly at him. "Now, come on. Stop trying to blend in and join the torture with the rest of us."


End file.
